(Resumed) Solstice

[Em]

Snow blanketed the sharp-leaf trees surrounding my silver figure from afar as I ventured into a vast clearing.

I'm dreaming again. I wasn't sure how I correlated being a pale wispy woman to dreaming, but I didn't ask questions.

Equidistant each tree lay a jet-black blade, lightly curved, reflecting scintillating colours from the sunlight above. I knew this blade, yet held no clue from where.

I wandered toward it when fire showered overhead. I kicked back, away from the dive of a flame-wrought Jester followed by some manner of Bodyguard. 

Said Bodyguard, in one bound, leapt to me, scorched holes through my figure with a flurry of blows. I opened my mouth to scream. No sound escaped.

In the heat of pain, a fear flashed through and pulled me to the left, but not fast enough: a serrated blade dug into and ripped my right arm free from my body. With emotions solid as the biting ice, I glanced back and beheld a Knight, a swordswoman (woman?) armoured in hellfrost. There were no eyes behind that visor, no hint of warmth.

I wasted no time, sprinting dead past the Bodyguard to flee the Knight. The Bodyguard would certainly sear me from behind, but better the Devil one knew.

Instead, the Knight and Bodyguard approached each other, dropping their armaments in favour of dance. The Spirit of the act shone far brighter than anything else in this nightmare of a dream.

I kept running.

The Jester, not so kind, wreathed herself in Fire and draped it over the snow.

Hot Cold Hot Cold Hot Cold. The two burning sensations wrought their havock, not that it would deter me from that sword they seemed desperate to withhold.

But where Fire and Water would not stop me, Earth would. Roots from underneath sprouted into barbed lances, skewering me every which way.

All hope was lost. I looked every which way to find a regal wooden Ruler adorned in crown and jewels, flanked by what was most certainly an airy Prince of Wind. The latter approached me, one word filling my thoughts: Deadweight-

[Emmett]

The blanket stood no chance. My awakening saw it thrown to the wall before me, slightly damp from the sweat exuded from head to toe.

Every scared breath flanked my... pectoral muscles... on this body, my body, in which I was born. The male body with a thorn where delusional fantasy mused a second mouth should have been.

I held my hand to my face and pushed Æther through it to form a Shroud, pain greeting me from the Lightning coursing through my arm, pretending to be my Spell. The jolt sent me reeling onto the carpeted floor beneath.

"Ugh... Ow." I scrambled back to my feet, only now noticing being stripped to smallclothes. Who abducted me?!

I took stock of my surroundings. Faint lights shone from ornaments on the wall. A bed lay before me, now deprived of its blanket. I glanced left to a nightstand on which my clothing lay, freshly cleaned and folded.

Whoever brought me here went the extra kilometre, though I ruled out my whole Squad. I felt closest to Grace, but she still feared and resented me. That was simply a fact, one as immutable as my manhood-

Bile retched in my throat and threatened expulsion. I swallowed it back down, but it burned. I took the hint and directed my thoughts elsewhere: the only important detail I drew from that was not being much of a Magus currently. With time, that would change, but not soon.

Nightfall had to still be upon us. Before I could check, however, I needed my clothes back. At least it wasn't Patrick who moved me. He knows better than to sleep unready, and he'd never have laundered the clothes.

Work pants, on. Then, a simple shirt. Cover it with the Student of Æther's robe, and presto, ready to go.

I approached the door opposite the bed off to the side and opened it slightly ajar. The lack of immediate sunlight confirmed morning had yet to bloom.

If I had my Magick, I'd entertain a silent exeunt, but this was Can Vahs, and I was about as dangerous as a Dreamer, so I opted to wait for sunrise so I could at least see.

I closed the door and returned to bed, correctly this time.

A while later, a percussive rap on the door seized my senses.

I hoisted myself off the bed with surety and stealth. After all, someone was knocking, not necessarily anyone safe.

"Emmett!" A voice shouted faintly. Grace's, to be exact. I breathed the tension out of my muscles and jogged to the door, unlatching and opening it.

Grace greeted me with the brightest smile I'd seen yet from her, and Patrick was... waving?! At me?! "Hey Emmy."

My hand clenched into a fist; Lightning erupted through me. 

Grace set her hand atop my chest, pulsing Water-Aspected Æther through to scour my error. "Let's not call him that, alright? It's severely bothering him."

"Ah, uh, right. Sorry."

Who is this impostor? What in the Heavens and Havens did he do with Patrick? I understood why he'd defer to Grace, but an apology?!

"And Emmett." Turns out I'm not exempt from Grace's disappointment. "Your robes are crumpled. Did you have a nightmare?"

That explains why my outfit was clean and folded, but why would she go to such lengths over me of all people? "Y-yeah. But I went back to sleep and soundly at that."

Grace shook her head. "Fowlshite. Your Soul is battered, your Shroud is torn, and your Magick screams your self-loathing. I know not what pains you suffered yesterday nor yesternight, but you need a moratorium on Spellcasting. We'll spend an hour searching for the grimoire, then we three are walking back to CVAC."

Three? That didn't sound right. "What of Samael?"

Patrick scoffed. "Fucker left us for dead 'cause he wanted to report an early failure and kiss up to the faculty or whatever. It's like he doesn't even want us around."

Grace nodded. "Honestly, it's for the best. I'd rather have even one of you around than him. Now let us be off."

I left the dormitory room I unknowingly borrowed, following my Squadmates through a First-Floor balcony, down some stairs, and away from our now-former lodging. With every step, Grace pushed Æther into the earth in search of the tome. The plan was a systematic search of Annul Rhombus followed by departure.

About ten minutes in, Grace broke into a sprint, barging into a hut owned by no one.

Patrick and I adopted a light jog to balance time and stamina expenditures. Grace seemed in a good mood, so we doubted anything was amiss.

Grace retrieved a scarlet-red book with deep black markings as if burnt into the binding. "So, this is the book, but why did the Demon just leave it? Did we send it running? Did we outlast it?"

Patrick raised and slumped his shoulders. "Doesn't matter. Let's give it back to Lienne and rub it in Samael's face."

I shook my head, raising my hands in mock defeat. "Sure, but can we check if it's real? I'd rather we not embarrass ourselves with an obvious fake."

Grace nodded and flipped through the pages. "Sword stances, meditation postures, and..." She clapped the book shut with prejudice. "No. No."

Patrick's face wrinkled. "Counterfeit?"

"No." Grace held the book close. "This book describes imbuing one's Magick with fear, murderous intent, traumatic ideations, suicidality..."

Patrick took several steps back.

I took a step forward.

"Emmett don't you dare!" Grace snapped, almost snarling as she shielded the book away with her body like a starving wolf's meal. "You're not touching this! We're taking this to Lienne, and she can put it back on her shelves, and that's final!"

A resentment of sorts simmered in my lungs. Techniques to help me better harness my negative emotions, and Grace was withholding them from me?! "Oh thank you very much for keeping me in the dark about managing my own emotions, Grace!" I turned my back toward her, facing the Sun, which I knew to be eastward at this time of day.

"Emmett, I think we should both listen to-"

I punched out a ball of Magick to Patrick's face to shut him up. He had an Element; he could-

"Oh- F- Sh-" Patrick landed square on his back, nose crunched and bloodied. "Ow."

"Emmett!!" Grace shouted. "What is your problem?!"

I froze. I had hurt him out of nothing more than a temper tantrum. Sure, it was Patrick, and he deserved it after everything he'd done to me, but not like this!! I stared at my shaking left hand, wordless, azure sparks and flames popping off it.

Patrick's voice bore a sudden woodwind timbre after all that. "Heavens, Em. Can you not? That was sudden." No it wasn't. You could have blocked it with ease. Why didn't you.

The next idiotic voice was Grace's. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear. Emmett, you're looking for ways to control those emotions, am I right? To not let them do what they just did to Patrick over there?"

"Idiot let it connect." I displaced myself a few footfalls away. "But you are correct. I don't want to lose myself to hate and pain and spite and ice. Who on this blasted world chooses to feel like this, anyway?"

"Yeah, this book does the opposite." Grace approached Patrick, gently lifting him back to his feet. "It teaches you to amplify your spite, stabbing yourself again and again with your traumas before lashing out with extreme violence like you just did."

Just how stupid could a girl get? "And you didn't think for a second that if I could control myself in the throes of exacerbated anguish, then I'd have not a single worry in my day-to-day affairs?!"

Grace marched right up in my face, locking her eyes to mine in a scowl. "No. I didn't. Do you know why I didn't? Because I spent most of my life where you are, right now. And unlike you, I've studied both internal and external Artes for nearly a decade. It doesn't work. Instead, you get addicted to the pain, the misery, the hatred. It infects you and colours every act you take, every Spell you cast. For me, the addiction was so deep I was drowning, wholly succumbed until I came here and met someone who pulled me out of my sad, miserable rut of androphobic self-pity, showing me how to smile again, how to love again, that life is more than scouting out the next soon-to-be rapist and snuffing him out before fleeing the right hand of the law."

I looked up from my hand, but my body still shivered throughout. "Let me guess. Patrick?" Of course it was Patrick.

"No." Grace shook her head. "I find my affections for him growing, but he did not my Devils abate."

I blinked. "Then who could have-"

"Oh Stars Above," Patrick cut me off, "She's talking about you, dumbass!! Get that through your hellsdamned skull before I crack it open like an egg!"

The shapes blurred into each other.

"Patrick, what're-" I heard Grace's voice object.

"What you're doing works for a girl, sure, but Emmett's no girl, even if he should've been born one with that bleeding heart." There was a sick comedy in hearing Patrick speak with a broken nose. Hearing him affirm what I was stung, but he was right nonetheless. "You wanna get a man out of a crisis, shock the Mind and light a fire. It'll sort itself out."

The world around me swam back to clarity. In the back of my head, I heard a sound like a glass marble rolling into a cup. "Hey, I, uh, think I'm alright now. Thank you, both of you," said a voice I recognized as mine yet also foreign.

Patrick smiled. "You're welcome. Welcome back."

Grace shook her head. "You are certainly not alright, but we're not having that conversation here. We have the book, we're off each other's throats, and we're mostly in good shape. Let's head home."

The three bodies nodded.

[Grace]

We chose to leave via the northern highway, which, leading directly to the Colleges, should bear few bandits, if any. Despite this, we still walked single-rank with Emmett in the centre. He was in no condition to fight; the two Triumvirate Twats must have pushed him over his thresholds.

Speaking of which: Emmett's outburst rang absurd. Even his spat toward me was wildly uncharacteristic. If it weren't for his prior altruism, I might have considered slaying him for the benefit of humanity and moving on as I always had.

A venomous whisper hailing from the darkness of the past mused that I should do that anyway.

The rest of me shouted it down, pointing out how Emmett only just learned he was a transcaster and how we shouldn't expect him to process his negative emotion-

A false set. He had "resolved" the tension in his Soul by Clutching himself into a centre that didn't exist, a trick often employed by women to uphold their societal expectations- I Swear Upon Astra And Umbra!

Even transcasting, men had no reason to submit themselves so thoroughly, not when the mores of society so catered to them!

I closed my eyes and pushed my Shroud out to divine intuition of the state of Emmett's-

A silvery womanly silhouette, shackled to the walls of a burning village, muscles bulging unnaturally on her figure with every lash of Lightning.

Heavens and Havens.

Emmett Sinclair is fully and utterly transgender.

I considered the grimoire in my hand. 

This was a farce. There was no enemy Caller.

Ser Lienne had noticed Emmett's transness, and this Mission was to arrange for him- her, to receive the grimoire and channel her dysphoria in pursuit of power.

My interior frosted over, but I kept my presentation calm. Emmett wasn't out yet; I dared not show a single hint of my discovery. Further, Ser Lienne was willing to lie in official paperwork. What was her goal in all this? Why groom Emmett into a walking Ætherbomb? Who was the target of this conspiratorial gambit?

In retrospect, the choice to put the four of us specifically in a Squad was positively sadistic. But Ser Linn chose the composition, not Ser Lienne.

The stench of corruption hung in the air; there was no hiding it. The Can Vahs Arcane Colleges held ulterior motivations, and I had a responsibility to my Squad- no, my friends, to uncover the bottom of this.

In retardation of suspicion, I would keep demure and faithfully attend my Squad meetings. Afterward, though, I would pay a visit to Ser Fayt. After all, she was my sister-in-law. Aunt-in-law?

It didn't matter; she was kin to me now, and I would take full advantage of that.

LunaSoltaer

Emotions suck. Puberty2 sucks, which, well, the magic system is trying to emulate. Trying to find a name for this chapter was annoying as sin. But Grace surprised me this chapter. I was not expecting her to put the details together so early, but this is Grace. Delving into the depths of people's souls and overthinking everything about everything are kinda what she does.

Also I'm kinda liking new Patrick, not gonna lie.